Ashley Jacot De Boinod’s doughnut journey began about a year ago. Having worked as a pastry chef in some of the best spots in the city (including Buca and Scaramouche), Jacot De Boinod began selling her Glory Hole Doughnuts wholesale to shops like Thor Espresso Bar, Burger Bar and 416 Snack Bar to quite some acclaim. But “the eventual goal was to open a retail space,” she tells us. Despite setbacks in securing a location and finding startup capital for the project (she eventually turned to Indiegogo for crowdfunding), Glory Hole Doughnuts finally got itself a physical space in Parkdale a couple of weeks back.
The shop attracts a dozen or more visitors within 15 minutes of opening at 9 a.m. Designed by Jacot De Boinod and her husband, Rob Dean, who is also behind Glory Hole’s branding, the store has pale green walls and, like the doughnuts, a retro Canadiana vibe. The counter’s façade is made of pieces of chopped wood, and Canadian wilderness scenes are pictured on the wall. The back wall is covered with blackboard paint, and does double duty as a doughnut menu and a place to thank the shop’s various supporters and funders.
The yeast-based doughnuts are made fresh throughout the day and start at $3 for a simple cinnamon-sugar doughnut, ramping up to $3.50 for Black Forest cake, granola and yogurt, pretzel, cookies and cream and chocolate pistachio and topping out at $4.50 for fancy cream-filled doughnuts like banana cream or lemon meringue. A box of six costs $20 flat. Daily, there are specials like cinnamon buns ($4) and doughnut holes, and each week there’ll be a different take on a bacon doughnut. And although there’s just one cake-based doughnut on the menu (lemon ricotta with olive oil glaze), we’re told that there should be a few more in the coming months (the doughnuts at Paulette’s are all cake-based). And since you really can’t eat your doughnut without a cup of joe, organic fair trade coffee is available for $2.
Glory Hole Doughnuts, 1596 Queen St. W., 647-352-4848, gloryholedoughnuts.com, @GHoleDoughnuts
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